GRACE MONTHLY OCEAN MASS GRIDS NETCDF GFZ RELEASE 5.0

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DOI

10.5067/TEOCN-0NG05

Short Name

TELLUS_OCEAN_NC_GFZ_RL05

Description

The twin satellites of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), launched in March of 2002, are making detailed monthly measurements of Earth's gravity field changes. These observations can detect regional mass changes of Earth's water reservoirs over land, ice and oceans. GRACE measures gravity variations by relating it to the distance variations between the two satellites, which fly in the same orbit, separated by about 240 km at an altitude of ~450 km. The monthly ocean mass grids contain ocean bottom pressure anomalies from GRACE time-variable gravity data processed by GFZ relative to a time-mean. The bottom pressure anomalies are given in 'equivalent water thickness' (in NetCDF format), so can be compared to sea level anomalies due to changes of water mass (reference density is 1027 kg/m^3). The time coverage for the monthly grids are determined by GRACE months. For the list of GRACE month dates visit
http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/data/grace-months/. For more information please visit http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/data/get-data/monthly-mass-grids-ocean/.